March 11, 2009
Version 1.1 released. Universal binary, works on Leopard + Tiger.
Download here.
With the release of iTunes 7, album artworks are a minor rage. I downloaded my fair share of artworks (even though I do not have an iTunes account) and wanted a way to display them in a screensaver. As all regular readers and their grandmas know by now, I’m still running Panther, so I couldn’t (obviously) use the screensaver that apparently ships with Tiger for this very purpose.
I wanted one very badly and since I couldn’t find anything out there, I had no option but to “get my hands dirty”. The result is Album Art For The Rest of Us version 1.0.
When I conceptualized I had imagined one artwork on the screen at a time, but somehow this (screenshot below) seems better. Some of the “features” are:
- Displays an artwork on a random position on the screen.
- Adds an artwork every two seconds.
- Scales down “bigger” artworks to 300 X 300 pixels before displaying them. If the artwork isn’t “sqaure”, it scales down the image such that the larger edge is 300 pixels.
- Uses 50% Transparency to display the images on top of each other.
Note: Since the screensaver uses Applescript to get the artwork, iTunes needs to be running in the background for it to function. If iTunes is not running when the screensaver starts, it will be started automatically.
I have tested this on a machine running Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9 and iTunes 7 and it works fine. It should work with other versions, but I have no way of verifying that works fine on PPC Tiger. If you happen to get it running (or run into any problems) under any other setup than one mentioned above, either drop me a line or leave a comment.
I appreciate encourage any/ all feedback. If there’s enough interest I would be willing to convert some of things (above) into user configurable options.
Download (16 KB).
If you are having trouble downloading, try this page instead.
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 or later (Tiger PPC compatible), iTunes.
Screenshot:
[tags]Album Art For The Rest of Us, iTunes, iTunes 7, artwork, album artwork, Panther[/tags]
Thanks from a fellow Panther user. All I needed, something to reinfoce my iTunes addiction. LOL! Thanks again.
Daymon
since i installed aaftru v1.0 on 10.4.8 (2GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook) i can’t go back to play conventional itune art work screensaver.
your advice on how to uninstall it safely will be appreciated.
thanks.
@hiro
You don’t need to un-install AAFTRU to switch back to any other screensaver. You can simply do that by going to “Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Desktop & Screensaver” and selecting the screensaver of your choice.
However, if you wish to un-install it in any case, the procedure is same as any other screesaver. Depending upon whether you installed it from one user or all, the screensaver is placed in “/Library/Screen Savers” (all users) or “/Users/user-name/Library/Screen Savers” (one user) – if you are unsure what option you selected at the time of installation, just check in both places. Delete the file corresponding to the screensaver you want to install – “Album Art For The Rest of Us.saver” in this case.
Hope that helps. Please let me know if you face any problems and I’ll be glad to help out if possible.
BTW did you face any issues while running the screensaver in Tiger? Your feedback would be helpful.
@Daymon
Glad someone (else) found it useful (as well) 🙂
Hi-
I have tried to install it in 10.4.10
2 GHz Core 2 duo intel and each time i try to use it in the screensavers control panel it says : Can’t load screen saver
You cannot use the screen saver AAFTRU on this computer. Contact the developer of this software for a newer version.
So here I am !!! what’s next ?
Hi there,
sorry to say but this little thing has killed ANY ACTION I can take in System Prefs > Screen Savers. (The ball is spinning & spinning…)
Deleting AAFTROS from the library did not help / change any of this behaviour.
Michael
Hi Michael
Sorry to hear what has happened to your system, but if deleting AAFTRU hasn’t helped solve your problem, I think the problem was not caused by AAFTRU in the first place! Please go to Applications -> Utilities -> Console and see if you see any message in the “System.log” or “Console.log” when the System Preferences beach balls – that might give you an idea about the “bad apple”. Alternatively, delete all user installed screen savers from ~/Library/Screen Savers and see if that helps.
I have album artwork (aa) that is not automatically added to iTunes. Does anyone know where iTunes stores the aa so that I can manually add mine?
Hi John
Here’s how you can do what you want http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1409
Cheers
Kunal
Kunal, thanx for your message:
Hi John
Here’s how you can do what you want http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1409
Cheers
Kunal